“Heightened Senses” – The Cathode Ray LP/CD/DL

Following on four and a half years from their last long player, the “Heightened Senses” album itself, as the name implies, finds the band’s musical and lyrical palette raised to new levels. Simultaneously more pop and progressive, direct and experimental, electronic and acoustic, the album’s nine tracks take the listener on a rich and varied sonic journey, while lyrically it concerns itself variously with themes of fantasy and reality, alienation and belonging, hopes and fears, doubts and certainties, optimism and mortality, the past, present and future. Meanwhile, single “Heightened Senses” itself digs deeper into the more positive side of The Cathode Ray, previously hinted at on earlier singles such as “Mind” and “This Force Of Nature”. Simultaneously a simple ode to the joy of life and a love song, chief songwriter Jeremy Thoms sings of “living in the here and now” and how “this energy inside” gives him “heightened senses, intensified and true, magnified for you”, all set to an insanely catchy slice of skewed perfect pop which The Cathode Ray do so well. Think Portugal The Man meets The Strokes via Pharrell and OutKast. The album also includes previous single “Another World” which was another bold musical statement from the band, evoking nothing less than the glam balladry of Suede, Roxy Music or Be-Bop Deluxe, married to subliminal electronica.